If you would turn to Galatians
chapter 2, I'm going to be bringing a message there from verses 16
through 21, a message that I've titled, Through the Law, Dead
to the Law. Through the Law, Dead to the
Law. And as with any passage, it's
important that we consider it in its context. So as you turn
there, let me just relate to you what's going on here in these
latter verses of Galatians chapter 2. We read there of the account
of how certain Jews came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and
Peter feared their disfavor. And he was sitting there with
the Gentile believers, and in fearing their disfavor, he moved
away from them. He withdrew from meeting with
them as if they were lacking somehow. withdrew from these
Gentile believers as if they were not as holy or some way
at least inferior spiritually speaking as compared with the
Jewish believers who he went over to sit with and due to his
influence it caused other Jews and even Barnabas to take part
in that hypocrisy and withdraw their fellowship as well and
we read there in verse 11 it says that Peter was to be blamed
And so Paul was right. It says there, the words are,
he withstood him to the face. He rebuked him. And he was right
to do so. And he did so publicly because
of Peter's influence on the others, as Barnabas and the other Jews
arose from the table. Now the scripture teaches us
that Peter, the apostle Peter here, he knew and he believed
the gospel. But his conduct and his actions
here were inconsistent with his doctrine. And as we're going
to see in the verses that we consider today, even to the subversion
of the truth of justification and eternal life based solely
upon Christ and the imputation of his finished work of righteousness,
that is, his justification before God without the deeds of the
law, apart from any contribution from, found in, or even attributed
to the sinner. The distinction between those
who were justified and those who were not, didn't lie with
the sinner, but with the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and what
he accomplished for them. And we see from this example,
it's no small thing for believers to break fellowship with other
believers. Now, when I say other believers,
as we heard during the 10 o'clock hour, that means others who are
resting in and abiding in the doctrine of Christ. In other
words, if their hope is one and the same, if it's in Christ and
Him crucified. And we're going to see how important
an issue this is as we consider the text today, for that's what
this is, is a continuation of Paul's rebuke of fear. So we're
going to look at verses 16 through 21. But actually, let's start our
reading back in verse 14, for this is the beginning of Paul's
rebuke. And he says, But when I saw,
that is, when I, Paul, saw that they walked not uprightly. He's saying they, speaking of
Peter and of Barnabas and the other Jews who withdrew from
the Gentile believers. And he says, They walked not
uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. He's going to
show us in these verses that this is a gospel issue. He says,
I said unto Peter before them all, If thou being the Jew livest
after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compelst
thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We, who are Jews
by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing that a
man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ. And he goes on, I'll come back
here to verse 16 in just a second. But to understand it, we need
to start with the beginning of the sentence there, I think,
in verse 15, when he says, We who are Jews by nature, Paul
is describing himself. He says, We, he's describing
Peter, who he's speaking to and Barnabas and the other believing
Jews. He says, We who are Jews by nature. These he's speaking with here
at Antioch. He said, that is, by birth, that
is, they came up from their infancy under the Jewish religion and
under the law of Moses and in the observance of all that God
had commanded under that old covenant. And he says, and not
sinners of the Gentiles. Now my study of that expression,
sinners of the Gentiles, That was how the Jews expressed the
heathen Gentiles that did not have the law of Moses, and therefore
they lived like they were under no constraints during the period
of that old covenant. They lived actually in all manner
of wickedness. Paul described them, he was speaking
to Gentile believers in Ephesians chapter 2, and he said, you were
not even of the commonwealth of Israel, having no hope and
without God in the world, without the law. See, they had no law.
And so he continues here in verse 16 and he says, Now, we who are
Jews by birth, that is, not like the non-Jews who had no law,
no revelation from God, he says, but we, knowing that a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of
Jesus Christ, even we, like those Gentile believers, see, even
we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by
the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. for by
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Paul's point
here is that both Jew and Gentile believers who are justified before
God are justified not by their efforts to keep the law, that
is, for them meeting any condition or any requirement whatsoever,
but only by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to keep the law
and to die on the cross for them. And notice he says there, even
we, The sense here is that even though now we ourselves are Jews
by nature, unlike the Gentile believers, even though we grew
up under the law of Moses and in the observance of all of that,
still it was revealed unto us also, just like it was those
Gentile believers, even we, it was revealed to us that by, to
use the expression in the verse there, by the faith of Jesus
Christ, that they could not be justified before God by their
keeping of that law, their meeting any condition or any requirement
that would presume, listen, even to contribute to their acceptance
before a holy God. And so it's like Paul saying
this. He's saying, look, Peter, we all grew up as observant Jews. We know well that we're not considered
righteous before God, justified by the works of the law that
we did. We know that even though we grew up as observant Jews,
that we were and are considered righteous before God only by
Jesus Christ. In fact, in Galatians 3, the
very next chapter, Paul tells them and speaks to them about
how the law was simply our schoolmaster to point us to Christ. And the
reason we know it is by Christ alone has been made evident.
It's made evident to anyone who God gives faith to. All of God's
sheep who are given spiritual life and brought to faith and
repentance, like Peter and like Paul, who have, as he said in
verse 16, have believed in Jesus Christ, they have, by God-given
faith, been convinced of sin and of righteousness. Even the
extent of the law and how the very law of God, all of His revealed
will, Being a holy God, it demands continual, sinless, perfection,
perfect obedience from the cradle to the grave. The scripture says,
Cursed is every man that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law. James said to have offended in
one thing is to have offended in all. God's holy, and he can't
accept anything short of perfection. And all have sinned, as Paul
wrote to the Romans, for all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. So under the gospel message, God's sheep,
his spiritual Israel, those who were chosen unto eternal salvation
in him, they agree with God's word, as stated there at the
end of verse 16, that by the sinner's effort to meet a condition
or requirement, that is, by the works of the law shall no flesh
be justified. Now there is a sense in which
we consider that men are justified by the works of the law, isn't
there? That is, only as performed by their representative and their
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, on their behalf. But here he
says, it's not by any works that they, the flesh, perform. By works of the law, no flesh
shall be justified. For, you see, our very best efforts
fall miserably short of the perfection that's required and so they cannot
justify us before God. We won't be found not guilty
based on anything that proceeds from us, the sinner. And so,
Paul tells Peter and the others there that what we know instead
is, he's saying this is what we believe, Peter. He knew full
well where Peter's hope was. And he says, we are justified
by the faith of Jesus Christ. And of course, there it's not
talking about their believing, their having faith, their subjective
faith, but rather the object of their faith. That is, Jesus
Christ and His justifying righteousness. His complete, perfect satisfaction
to all that God required. Both in precept, perfect obedience
from the cradle to the grave. Perfect obedience. The sinless
Lamb of God who walked on this earth without spot. And the extraction
of the penalty that the law required for he did that as a substitute
for what center and holy God as he told Moses he he should
by no means clear the guilty. Now that would diminish the very
perfection of God. He can't come into presence with
them. They must be put away and so a penalty. A penalty sufficient
to the infinite travesty against a holy God's justice. The infinitely
valuable blood of the Lamb of God had to be shed. And so that's
what that's referring to. That's the faith of Jesus Christ. His justifying righteousness.
And so he continues in verse 17, he says, but if while we
seek to be justified by Christ, We ourselves also are found sinners. Is therefore Christ the minister
of sin? God forbid. This verse needs
some explanation, and I really believe it's properly and best
understood if we just keep in mind the overall context here. Look, it's true and can be said
of all believers that Though the Scripture says of believers
that they're holy, unacceptable, unreprovable before God, all
of that's based upon the merit of what Christ accomplished,
His righteousness being imputed or put to the account of the
sinner. And you see, but yet we know
we're still sinners within ourselves. Why, there's enough sin in my
thoughts even as I stand before you here this morning to to cause
God to justly send me to hell. If you ever come to realize that
we're just ate up with self, we're so absorbed with self and
sin, then you know you need mercy that's only found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Well, that's true, and oftentimes
this verse is presented in light of that truth, but I don't believe
that's the context of this particular passage. I believe instead it's
suggesting that Paul is making reference to sinners in the same
sense that it was used back there in verse 15 when he was talking
about the sinners of the Gentiles as those without the law. And
it fits with his conclusions here, you'll see. He seems to
be explaining here to Peter the folly of his having acted out
of fear that such an accusation that they made, even concerning
the believing Gentiles. That is, that you are really
without the law, that you've ignored the law. And he's saying
your fear that being found, see, at the table with those Gentiles,
Peter, how unfounded that fear would be. You see, because unfortunately,
some of the Jews, the Judaizers in particular, They tried to
tell these Gentile believers, yeah, but no, you need something
more. You must be circumcised, for
example. And so I think that's the point
he's making is in reference to those unbelieving Jews having
accused the followers of Christ of ignoring the law of Moses.
As they accused Christ, they said he came to destroy the law. And thus, being sinners in the
same sense, that they considered the old heathen Gentile nations
without the law. And he is setting forth here
the implication of this erroneous accusation, as held by some such
as the Judaizers. That is, likening true Jewish
believers to Not even the accurate portrayal of the believing Gentiles,
but the heathen Gentiles, as when they were truly without
God and without hope in the world. All on account of the fact that
through God-given repentance, They had forsaken the notion
of any merit whatsoever being derived from their own works
of the law. Anything they did, any condition
or any requirement they met. And Paul is saying now, given
that our profession is that we're looking to Christ for all our
righteousness, if that accusation were to be true to us as, listen,
as Peter, you kind of fed that by your walking away from the
table. If that accusation were true of us as the followers of
Christ, it would mean Christ would be the minister of sin,
not righteousness, because righteousness is the fulfillment, the satisfaction
of the law. And so what he's telling Peter
is, Peter, I know you follow Christ, and you know Christ is
not the minister of sin, and in your fear that you didn't
want to be identified and found as sinners with those who are
really being mischaracterized The believing Gentiles were really
being mischaracterized because they were still Gentiles. And
all because some of the Jews wanted to say, no, that's not
enough. What Paul and Peter and others have taught you in the
gospel, that's not enough for you. There has to be something
more here. You've got to be circumcised. You've got to do this. And so
Paul here in saying, God forbid that any such thing should be
said of Christ, he's showing the absurdity, see, and the contradiction
of such a view. Men often set up what I call
false dichotomies. They'll say, if you think this,
that means you can't believe this. These two things can't
coexist. Or their logic will just be faulty. Now, usually what makes it faulty
is there's a false assumption about what one believes. Here,
they're saying, Paul, Peter, If you believe, the accusation
from these other Jews would be, if you believe that there's nothing
to add to what Christ performed, that means you're really like
those wicked, godless, heathens, without law, sinners of the Gentiles.
But Paul's going to proceed here in these verses to show, no,
it really just reflects that you don't really understand where
my hope is. So Paul's saying it would be to misunderstand
what we're looking to in Christ. to accuse us to be sinners in
that sense, that spoken of the heathen Gentiles, that is lost
and giving no evidence whatsoever of being justified. And so in
viewing us as unjustified persons, notwithstanding the fact now
that we seek Christ, he says there, so as to find all our
justification in and by him, you're implying that justification
isn't simply or completely by Christ. You're saying there's
something more required. We've got to find some merit
in something other than or in addition to that justifying righteousness
of the cross. And that's what the Judaizers
suggested to the Gentile believers. That in resting in Christ, that
in doing so, and in his finished work, that just wasn't quite
enough. They needed to be circumcised,
they would tell them. Or they needed to add at least
some works of the old covenant law, the law of Moses, in order
to contribute to their justification and acceptance before God. And
Paul is saying, look, to concede that there's something more to
be credited to these Jewish believers. When Peter gets up and withdraws
from the Gentiles and goes over to sit with the Jewish believers
and draws and causes, leads Barnabas and some of the others, it says
there, to go with him. He's saying, then you've got
to conclude that You'd have to conclude if you're going to fall
privy to, or what's the right word, if you're going to act
consistent as if that accusation might have some merit, he's saying
then we'd have to be mistaken in following Christ, in thinking
that everything was completed by Him, by His satisfaction to
law and justice, you see. So if they erroneously considered
us to be lawless in that way, Because we follow Christ, since
we say we follow Christ, that would mean that instead of following
a minister of righteousness, satisfaction, that's what righteousness
is, satisfaction being made, we'd be following a minister
of sin. And he said, let's not dare consider that, God forbid. To drive this point home, remember,
they even accused Christ of being a lawbreaker, a sinner. In Matthew
5, on the Sermon on the Mount, when he said, think not that
I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I came not to
destroy them, but to fulfill them. He said that because that's
exactly what they accused him of doing, of coming to destroy,
to do away with the law. Look, we are all sinners in ourselves. But the unbelieving Jews would
readily call Jesus of Nazareth, they'd call him the minister
of sin. And they call his followers sinners in that same sense, because
he taught and we believe that the old covenant law had been
abolished by way of fulfillment. And that's not, that's what they
didn't understand. They didn't understand. Oh, no,
no. We, we see the law fulfilled by our substitute, by his finished
work on the cross of Calvary. And so Paul says, God forbid.
In preaching the abolishment of the law of Moses by Christ
and in preaching our justification before God, not based on our
efforts to keep the law, but based on that work of Christ
that he finished at Calvary, we are not promoting sin under
the law. You know, many will say when
they hear the gospel of God's sovereign grace, they'll say,
if I believed like you do, I'd live like the devil. Well, see,
that's because they misunderstand. Imagining there's no good reason
for me to obey God or strive to be in compliance with his
revealed will if I don't get something for it. You see? You
see how it's a reflection of our sinful, selfish motives.
They have no idea that God gives in faith and repentance. He gives
us a new motive. One of gratitude. We love him
because he first loved us. Oh, and that's to be free from
that. That's to be free in Christ, free indeed. Well, Paul says, God forbid. He says that when, in fact, when
we preach that righteousness that Christ alone established
and that the law was really and truly abolished by him and him
alone, we're really honoring the law. For it is, as we'll
see in verse 19, through the law that Paul says, we're dead
to the law. As we read in Romans 3, 31, do
we then make void the law, God says, through Paul. He says,
do we make void the law through faith? God forbid, same words,
right? Yea, we establish the law. So I want you to consider just
a moment the seriousness of what Peter did here. Peter, a fellow
believer, with Paul. But what he conveyed to these
Gentile believers who were sitting there. I've thought about that.
You know, those Gentiles, they weren't like Paul in particular. And they weren't like Peter and
the other apostles. You recall after the resurrection,
it says that Christ began to expound unto them the Old Testament
Scriptures. And it says He opened their eyes
and their understandings to see how all of those scriptures,
which was the Old Testament, which the Jews were brought up
under, see? All of those things, how they
pictured and pointed to Christ, how they spoke of Him, is the
way Christ put it. They were pertained, all of those
things pertained to Him. Can't you imagine those Jewish
believers sitting around going, you know when we were performing
this ceremony and that? You know when we were, we had
no idea that that Lamb that was We were offering at the sacrifice
of the altar with a picture of Christ's blood being offered
as an unblemished, sinless lamb at the altar. That is, that which
would set apart of God's deity. All those pictures and types.
They had the advantage of that. And here's the Gentile believers.
They'd heard a simple gospel that Paul and Peter and the others
had been preaching. And their world had been turned
upside down. They had forsaken any notion
of an acceptance before God based upon any work of their hands.
They agreed with what Paul said their gospel was there in verse
16. They could identify with that. Peter identified with them.
And here they are sitting there and all of a sudden Peter gets
up from the table as if to say, you're missing something. There's
something more. And knowing Peter was a believer,
and knowing Peter's testimony, he used to write some of the
Bible here, we know that that was inconsistent with where Peter's
real hope was. And I've thought about it in
our day. You know, if last week or the week before, when Mark
and Winston were standing up here and they preached the gospel
in its clarity, some young man was out here, and God's Spirit
worked in his heart, And he came to the same conclusion here that
Paul and Peter and these other believing Gentiles did. His world
got turned upside down. He said, my goodness, maybe it
was over a period of days or weeks, maybe not that day, but
the person came to understand and see how God required perfect
satisfaction to all of his revealed will and that he as sinner had
no possibility, no hope of meeting that condition. And they tell
him about, but let me tell you what Christ did. He met every
one of those conditions in His perfect obedience unto death. And that the sins of all those
whom God reveals this truth to and causes them to love it, every
single one of them, they were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Those God chose from the foundation
of the world and gave to Christ. They were imputed to Him as the
scriptural word. They were charged to His account.
And likewise, the demerit of all their sins, their past, their
present, their future sins, of each and every generation of
those who would be brought to faith in Christ as a fruit and
effect of what Christ did for them, and that the merit of all
he accomplished His perfect satisfaction there, both in precept, obeying
the law, and in penalty, and having put away their sins, that
perfect standing before God, righteousness, would be laid
to their account. And so he rejoices, this one
does. And he repents. He does. The God-given faith
is always accompanied by its sister fruit of repentance. He
turns 180 degrees. And he says, oh, the evil of
me having imagined that back then when I walked an aisle or
prayed a prayer or did my part in believing something, that
I thought that's what made the difference in whether I'd go
to heaven or hell. And he says, oh, to find out, I've got to
have mercy by way of satisfaction to God's justice that only Christ
could provide. And he discovers, he says, and
by virtue of the fact that it's been made known to me, something
that would cause me to take sides against myself and with God on
this issue, I can know that that only comes as a fruit and effect
of Christ having done that for me. And so he tells us of that,
and we rejoice with him. You know, it says the angels
in heaven rejoice over such a thing. And he comes back the next week,
and let's assume I sit down with him at a table. And I sit down
and I say, and I'm going to give you kind of an absurd example,
but I think it's applicable here. I'm going to say, well, John
Doe, you know, I'm so happy about what's going on, what God has
done for you, but what are your thoughts about the millennium?
Now, obviously, that's kind of an absurd thing, but he goes,
what do you mean? I don't even know what a millennium
is. I say, are you a pre-millennialist? I can't say that word very well.
Post-millennialist or amillennialist, meaning without, you don't believe
there's a millennium? He said, I don't even know what millennium
is, man. And I get up from the table and I say, well, I'm going
to be praying for you. I imply to him that I don't even
consider there's something you're missing here. Apart from your
childlike faith and trusting in Christ and everything he accomplished.
You say, well, OK, but the millennium, we all know the view of those
that thousand year period of some view view it. Really doesn't
have anything to do with my justification. Well, let's talk about something
that does. Some of you may have heard, as I've heard before,
men preach that when Jesus Christ was in the Garden of Gethsemane,
when he started experiencing there the agony in consideration
of the death that he would accomplish, said there he he sweated drops
of blood. Some say that that's irrefutable
proof that right then and there at that particular moment in
the garden, all of God's elect sins, the demerit of them, were
imputed then and there to our Savior. Right there. And so somebody
comes to me with that and they say, what do you think about
that? Well, I'm not so sure about that. I don't know about that. And if they get up from the table,
and suggest to me that you're not really trusting in the law
being set aside. There's something wrong with
you here. Well, my friend, what I'm going to say is that you
just misunderstand me. You don't understand what I'm
trusting in. You see, I'm not trusting in the fact that Jesus
Christ's sins were imputed, or our sins were imputed to Him.
He had no sin, except by amputation. They were imputed to Him. at
this point in time, or that point in time, or any point in time,
my hope's in the fact that they were imputed to Him, and that
His righteousness was imputed to me. You see, that's where
my hope is. And you see, I'm not going to
get up from the table and leave someone whose hope is in the
same place mine is. You see, this morning I asked
Felton when he came in, I said, what do you know, Felton? And
he said, the gospel. And I know what Felton means
by the gospel. I know there are many people who claim to believe
the gospel. But he means the same gospel
that Paul and Peter and Barnabas and these believing Gentiles
here, all these that Antioch believed, you see. He's trusting,
as he says then, that by no works of the law shall no flesh be
justified. You see, I think about that.
God gives us repentance. And some 23 years ago, the gospel
was put in front of me, and there were a lot of things I didn't
have right, and I still don't have right, that I didn't know
about. But God's Spirit came and applied
the truth of the fact that I had to have the righteousness, the
perfect satisfaction that Christ wrought out, and He caused me
to do a 180-degree reversal from the religion of works, of imagining
that by works for the law, I could have been justified. You see,
I would have said it was Jesus Christ I was trusting in, but,
but, there's always a big but that says, I believed, and that's
what made the difference. And when God showed me that,
I saw the evil of ever having imagined stuff. Now, if I'm walking,
if I've turned and I'm walking this way, and you come along
and you suggest to me that No, there's something more. You've
got to get this right or that right. Then guess what I've got
to do? There's only two religions, grace
and works, and there's nothing in between. Then I've got to
turn again, and the only thing I can go back to is where I was
before. I can't go back there. And that's what we're going to
see in these verses here as we go into verse 18. Paul says,
No, God forbid, for if I build again the things which I destroyed,
I make myself a transgressor. The literal Greek translation
of that is, for if what I threw down, that means cast aside,
what I first repented of, if these things again I build, a
transgressor myself I constitute. In other words, he's saying,
look, if I were to go back to the law which I've thrown down,
which I've repented of. If I seek justification by my
deeds under the law, then I would be a transgressor, a lawbreaker. As Paul wrote in Galatians 5.3,
it teaches us there, if we find some merit in circumcision, and
as we've been properly taught over the years, you can put any
condition or requirement of compliance with God's revealed will in the
position of that word circumcision. If it's by a work or deed or
something done by me, in me, or through me, the sinner. If
I find some merit in circumcision, then as the end of that verse
tells us, I'm a debtor to do the whole law. That's Galatians
5.3. being convinced of sin and of
righteousness, he knew he couldn't meet that standard of perfection.
So he's saying, no, if I build again the things I've destroyed,
what I've already left behind, no, I'll make myself, I can't,
I have no choice, I can't go back there. You see, for I make
myself a transgressor, because I know I can't meet the condition.
Isn't that amazing that God keeps us, doesn't He? You know, because
there's just some things that we can't do if God convinced
of the truth of his gospel. How is it a sin? Now, there's
a lot of things we can do, and we see that from Scripture. I
don't mean to suggest that we can't err and waver and all that,
but ultimately, ultimately we can't. How is it a sin or transgression,
then, to build again a way to God through the law? Well, we
could be here for quite a while. There's a lot of ways that we
could do that. But I think perhaps the greatest travesty of it could
be explained this way. It would be to look at Christ
hanging on the cross, taking the punishment that we deserve,
bearing the very wrath of God for us, and then saying to Him,
well, that's all very nice, but it's not enough. Your work on
the cross won't be good enough before God, unless I'm circumcised,
as they tried to tell those Gentile believers. Or unless I eat kosher
food. Or unless I bring it home to
the day. Do my part. Say some prayer. Distinguish myself from others
by my dedication and my good works and my religious zeal.
Walk some aisle and make a profession. Get in a baptismal pool. As we,
as centers are, as regenerated, converted centers are commanded
to do. But not in order, not in order to merit anything. or buy into or concur with this
particular view of Scripture or this particular interpretation
of a passage. And the list really does never
end. You can't exhaust all the things we can plug in to that
that would be characterized as building again. Saying that simple
truth, see, is just not enough for us. And that's an insult. to a completed, finished work
of the Son of God. We should. We do. Think about that. I'm going to die. Paul says in
verse 20, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.
He's speaking of spiritual life. And living things grow. And they
learn. And if they're not growing, they're
not learning, then they're dead. And so I fully expect, I know,
that on the day I die and leave this earth, that I'm going to
hold a lot of error. I'm going to be wrong about a
lot of stuff. The Bible tells us we only see through a glass
dimly. And like the Apostle Paul here, you see, if I let that
unnerve me, that I don't know about this or about that, but
I know the doctrine of Christ as we had it set forth at 10
o'clock. I know where my justification is, based solely on the righteousness
He wrought out, and that imputed to me, the sinner. If I know
that, I shouldn't let things like that bother me, because
you see, I'm like Paul. If I've got to be right about
every little thing, if I've got to understand it all, every bit
of it, this Scripture's way to the riches are so deep that they're
inexhaustible. We'll never get it all right.
But that's what I'd have to do, you see. For if it comes, I'd
have to be a debtor to do the whole law. That would be a work
of law that I'd be adding to it. And so I'd have to say, oh,
I'll make myself a transgressor. It's impossible. I can't get
there. Well, we should now, and I have to be careful here. I
don't mean to say we shouldn't strive to grow in grace and knowledge
and spirit and truth. And if God has granted us faith
and repentance to trust in Christ and His righteousness alone,
Then I turn, and that hope doesn't change. If it does change, the
only way I can go back is to the opposite religion. It's either
grace or it's works. We don't leave, as we heard during
the 10 o'clock hour, the simplicity or singleness of Christ that
Paul warned the Corinthians not to be drawn away from. We don't
build back again that which we've destroyed. So the question becomes,
am I? Are you looking to Jesus as the
author and the finisher of the faith? Did he get it all done? Do you see your sure and certain
justification in Christ based solely on his satisfaction to
God's law and justice on your behalf? The merit of all of that
made yours by God's judicial imputation of it to you, putting
it to your account. Or is that not enough for you? Paul says, I repented of thinking
there was anything more to be added by me or my works. And that's what he means when
he says there, he speaks of those things which he had destroyed.
I think he's speaking as he did in Philippians 3. He said, those
things that I thought were gain to me, and we all start out that
way, don't we? The way that things write to
us is the way that ends in death by nature. And he said, the things
that I thought were gain, that would recommend me unto God,
my religious zeal, Touching the law blameless. He named those
things in Philippians 3. He says, I count those things
as loss. And that's what he's talking about here, I believe,
when he says, that's what I've destroyed. I count them loss.
And for me to go back then would constitute myself a transgressor.
I looked up that word transgressor. And the root word, as we heard
in the 10 o'clock hour, it does mean to break the law. But it
does have also the connotation of one who goes past or goes
beyond. And I think in that sense, when
we transgress, we know that it includes not just not living
up to the law, but imagining that what Christ did really didn't
completely get it done. That there's got to be something
else that's going to qualify me for heaven. adding anything
to the simplicity that is in Christ, the singleness of what
he accomplished, the justification of sinners by him alone. And Paul is saying here, I just
can't go back there because it would make me a debtor to do
the whole law. And that's the great tragedy of legalism and
legalistic thoughts which all of us are prone to have. Think
about it. We're talking about the Apostle
Peter here. In trying to be more right with God, actually sometimes
we end up being less right with God, and I should qualify that. I mean that in the sense of actually
moving away, having thoughts in opposition to the right, the
one righteousness that we need. And that was what the Pharisees
did, and during Christ's earthly ministry, if you recall, And
Paul knew that, he knew that thinking well, because as he
said of himself, I'm a pharisee of pharisees. And notice too,
I see just as a side note here, notice the kindness with which
Paul is dealing here with Peter. You know, it sounds pretty tough
when it says he withstood him to the face. But you notice Paul
is using first person here. He doesn't say now, Peter if
you believe, no he says if I. Because Paul knows, Paul knows
he's got feet of clay too, see? He knows that he likewise, as
all of us are, are subject to getting up from that table or
following Peter from that table. And he says, no, if I, and he
used the first person there. But it's clear he has Peter in
mind in this context. See, Peter had been taught of
the law of abolishment by way of Christ's fulfillment, and
Peter had acted accordingly. Peter conversed with the Gentile
believers. He ate with the Gentile believers. Peter declared that
the law was a yoke of bondage and one that you Gentiles were
not obligated to be under whatsoever. And yet, in a moment of weakness,
in a moment of fear, he was building again, so to speak, when he withdrew
his fellowship from them. And his conduct and his actions
were inconsistent with his hope and doctrine. So see and look,
even God's choice servant here, the Apostle Peter, is not above
falling into that kind of transgression. We should be on guard lest we
begin to build again by, look, adding something to, subtracting
something from, or being diverted or distracted away from the simple
truth of justification in and by Christ alone, based solely
upon his finished work alone. So I'm not going to get up from
that table. a lot, because I know what he
means when he says he knew the gospel. Well, verse 19, Paul
says, for I, through the, keep in mind now, back first, back
in verse 17, he said, now if you view me as unjustified, akin
to the sinners of the heathen Gentiles, without the law, now
think again, because look what he says in verse 19, for I, through
the law, am dead to the law that I might live unto God." And I
think there are two aspects which we can consider Paul's assertion
that is through the law. He's dead to the law. How did
he die to the law? The law slew him. In other words, the law
itself killed Paul. God, the Holy Spirit, showed
him by the law that he could not live up to the law and fulfill
its holy standard. You know, for a long time, Paul,
before Paul, knew the Lord his righteousness, knew Christ in
that way. He thought God would accept him because of his law-keeping,
but he came to understand the extent of the law. Understanding
it as Christ explains it in the Sermon on the Mount. It goes
to the heart, to the motive, summarized by the perfection
that is required when Christ says, So be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven. And he realized that
his works under the law could never declare him not guilty
before the bar of God's justice, righteous before God. So to die
to the law is to recognize that God's holy and His law can only
condemn us based on our best, very best efforts to keep it.
So to die to it is to renounce the law, to be freed from it,
freed from its dominion. So it's to have no confidence
in our law keeping. So we're no longer captive under
the yoke of slavery. And Paul describes in depth that,
if you want to study it on your own in Romans 5, how he was slain
to the law. And then secondly, Paul was dead
to the law through the law, being satisfied. He died to the law
through Christ, who fulfilled and not destroyed the law. And
so he states here emphatically, dogmatically, simply, just the
reality of true justification in Christ. When he says, I threw
the law, Not at the expense of the law. God didn't have to say,
well, I'm just going to pretend like you didn't sin. No, that
law had to be satisfied. Precept and penalty. And it was
done so by our substitute and our surety, the Lord Jesus Christ
on the cross of Calvary. So based on his righteousness
alone, his satisfaction, see, that he made, am I dead to the
law? I'm dead to its curse. Well,
verse 20, he continues, I'm just going to read it in the interest
of time here. Actually, that's what spawned my interest in this
passage, because it was a verse a lot of us memorized many years
ago. And so I may come back and do some more exposition on this
later. But let's read through it. It says, Paul says, I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. He's speaking
of spiritual life. They're living unto God, as he
said at the end of verse 19. Yet not I. Now that's a different
idea, not the one that was trying to establish the righteousness
of his own, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
That is, his faith, his walk of faith, the life he's living
in the flesh, is from God. In other words, it's the gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, as Paul wrote
to the Ephesians. Live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And it brings
us to verse 21, where he concludes, I do not frustrate the grace
of God. Set it aside for righteousness. Come by the law. Then Christ
is dead in vain. That is, if righteousness come
by law. You're you're meeting a condition or requirement. So
what we see here is the evil and the deadliness putting anything
in place or anything in addition. or anything taken away from that
which is proclaimed in that simple gospel message wherein that one
righteousness is revealed. You see, to suggest that justification
before God involves anything more, anything less, or anything
other than that which that simple gospel message of Christ and
him crucified reveals That is his perfect satisfaction. That
would be to set aside, to frustrate the grace of God. God could not
be just to justify a sinner in any other way but by the person
and finished work of Calvary. The literal translation of that
last phrase there is it would mean that Christ for naught died. And you know, Peter didn't think
that. So Paul is telling him, now Peter,
that's the implication. of what you're giving fuel to
in your departure here from those Gentile believers. No, he has
to be both a just God and Savior as we learn in Romans 3. So Paul's
just reminding Peter something Peter already knows. You see,
for the Jews or anybody else there, the unbelieving Jews,
to say you've got to still live under the law of Moses to be
right with God. That's exactly what it would
be to do. It would set aside the grace And Paul says, that's
not what I do. Paul may well have told Peter
what he wrote to the Galatians in chapter 5. He said, Stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Don't build again
on what you've already destroyed. Behold I, Paul, saying to you
that if you be circumcised, It's based on you adding anything
to it, any condition, any requirement. Christ shall profit you nothing,
for I testify again to every man that is circumcised, he's
a debtor to do the whole law. So see what a dispersion that
those notions cast upon the wisdom and the power of God and choosing
under the sound of this glorious message to save sinners, to bring
them to a knowledge of himself. What it says about his love,
what it says about his grace, it would be to set it aside.
So it confirms the conclusion to those who are trusting in
Christ. Even these to whom Paul is giving his rebuke here. He's
reminding them that, yeah, there's no righteousness by the law of
works. Nope, not by any contribution
from me and you, the sinner. That justification is solely
based on the finished work of righteousness. So, let's not
let anyone, look, if it were the Apostle Peter, to lead us
away from the table of like-minded fellow believers. Let us strive
not to build again, so to speak, by deviating at all from this
simple but marvelous truth of justification by Christ's imputed
righteousness and that alone, the satisfaction, see, that he
alone made God's law and justice in his finished work on the cross,
and that imputed to the sinner. charged to his account just as
that sinner's sin was charged to his account. So for everyone
who hears this message, my prayer is that God will bring you also
to identify with Paul and with Peter and with all believers
here and all believers everywhere who all rejoice in knowing that
through the law, based upon the satisfaction that Christ made,
no more, no less, you're dead to the law. Not guilty. Through the law, dead to the
law.